Congress looking for speed in infrastructure spending

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is looking for answers from the Department of Transportation about the speed of infrastructure spending. 

“I remain concerned about the slow pace at which the Department is distributing Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds,” said Committee Chair Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo.

“Despite having received more than $364 billion since IIJA’s enactment, DOT has obligated a little more than half and outlaid only 27% of available funds.”  

The statement was issued in conjunction with a committee hearing Thursday featuring testimony from DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The Secretary’s interpretation of the math deviates from Graves’ numbers. 

“We are more or less right in the middle of the five-year life of this authorization,” said Buttigieg. “By the most basic measure of funds flowing out, we made roughly half of the funding available.” 

At the same time the secretary conceded that the process for tapping the funds could be simplified and laid out the agency’s plan to smooth the pain points.

“We’ve undertaken a new level of technical assistance with our grant sponsors, because often it’s the first time that they’ve done a federal grant of this magnitude, especially the rural and tribal communities that we’ve been working with,” said Buttigieg. 

“Even if the delay is coming from the state or the county or the city not yet being ready with something, we should take ownership of that. We should take responsibility for that, not just say, ‘it’s your problem. You fix it.'”  

The complex relationship between the Highway Trust Fund and the electric vehicles that don’t pay into it via the federal gasoline tax was also explored.

Many states are already making their own adjustments to shore up their own coffers. According to National Council of State Legislatures, 33 states and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation to increase gas taxes since 2013 to compensate for the loss in revenue. Almost half the states now index their gas tax rates to inflation. But so far there is no federal level solution.  

“I won’t claim to have a magic solution on the Highway Trust Fund,” said Buttigieg. “I think by the time of the 2026 vote on a future reauthorization, that question will really come to a head, and Congress will need to decide whether the user-pays principle is the future, or whether to continue turning to other sorts of funding to fund our roads.”

The DOT is also being asked to consider a novel approach for moving toll road revenue across state lines by setting up a toll credit exchange market. According to Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., the provisions for establishing the market were part of the IIJA legislation. 

“Federal law allows states like New Hampshire to use toll credits to cover local match requirements for federally funded projects,” said Pappas. “But since states could historically only use toll credits for projects within the state where credits were accrued, many states left extra toll credits on the table.” 

The Congressman is proposing an exchange that would allow states to sell any excess credits to cover the match required for federally funded projects.

“We recognize the importance of the value of an innovative program like that,” said Buttigieg. “I can report to you that the Federal Highway Administration has made a lot of progress on that. As you know, anytime you stand up a novel program that leads to a lot of work that goes on in the background, which we’re working through.” 

On Wednesday the DOT announced $1.8 billion in awards from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity discretionary grant program for 148 projects across the country. 

“I’ll end by pointing out one other thing that the thousands of projects across the country and the 148 projects in this round have in common,” said Buttigieg. “Zero out of that number was invented or cooked up here at USDOT Headquarters in Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Many of them are longstanding dreams that would have happened, except that they lacked Federal support.”